dy156

I wanted to try and clarify something. I'm not trying to argue for Scalia. Indeed, as I said, I initially thought he should recuse himself based on his personal friendship. I don't think many people contend that Liteky is controlling precedant here.

Liteky dealt not with personal relations, but with statements made by the judge that reflect that the judge has a bias one way or another in the issues being decided, or where the judges prior rulings display "deep-seated and unequivocal antagonism that would render fair judgment impossible." While I'm not entirely familiar with the facts of the pledge of allegience case, from what I understand, Scalia made some comments about how he thinks the pledge is good and schoolkids should say it or something. This presents evidence that he is biased in a case about the propriety of having schoolkids say the pledge of allegiance. That's why he recused himself from that case. He has not made similar statements about how he thinks government should always produce or not produce documents in a discovery dispute, or how he thinks that there is a proper way for the federal government to name committee members. Nor has he written opinions that display a deep seated and unequivocal antogonism for or against the government in discovery disputes or in identifying committee members. Those are the issues in the Cheney case, and he is not recusing himself from it, in part because he has not expressed his opinion on those issues outside of court.
The other reason is, of course, the bulk of his memorandum explaining why his personal relationship to the vice president does not provide sufficient reason for him to recuse himself from a suit against the Vice Pres. in the V.P's official capacity.

Okay, now back to the discussion of what you think.

edit:if you want to look up that case, this might be helpful:

Liteky v. U.S.
114 S.Ct. 1147 (1994)